Australia/Israel Review

Australian Arabic and Islamic media continue to spread conspiracy theories

Recent developments in Gaza and Syria have provided ample fodder for extreme anti-Israel and antisemitic content in Arabic-language media in Australia, as well as some English-language media targeted at Muslim Australians.

Jillian Segal, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism

Australia’s envoy against antisemitism is “Netanyahu’s voice”

In late July, regular Australasian Muslim Times (AMUST) contributor Gary Dargan, who in the past made vicious innuendos about Australian Jews and alleged dual loyalty, targeted the plan presented by Jillian Segal, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism (ASECA), in response to rising antisemitism in the country. In his “Jillian Segal: Netanyahu’s Voice to Parliament,” Dargan reviewed Segal’s career highlights and her work for several Jewish organisations, also noting the donation made by her husband’s family trust to a conservative group.

Dargan concluded his text with an all-out personal attack on Segal. “With a track record like this it should come as no surprise that Ms Segal is promoting hard-line pro-Israel views and trying to criminalise criticism of Israel. Just as Advance Australia [the organisation Segal’s husband’s family allegedly donated to] is an oxymoron which in no way advances Australia, so too is the title anti-Semitism Envoy. Given all the controversy, it is time for a more appropriate rebranding. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jillian Segal, Netanyahu’s Voice to Parliament.”

Prophecies of Israel’s demise

In some cases, hate for the Jewish state leads media outlets to forego any pretence of adherence to journalistic standards – and permits the publication of complete fabrications. Australian Arabic-language portal Farah News, with its long history of spreading antisemitism and conspiracy theories, provided an example of this pattern when it published an article (on Aug. 4) supposedly authored by Israeli journalist Lior Ben Shaul, “a political analyst at the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.” However, no such person exists – the name may have been a warped version of Lior Ben Ami, a reporter at Israel’s news website Ynet.

The article itself, titled “The beginning of the end. Israel will collapse in two years, and Israelis are fleeing like rats,” was actually a text posted on X by Kuwaiti anti-Israeli activist Abu-Oshaibah. It contained a supposed “prophecy” that Israel will vanish in two years (in line with similar popular “prophecies” in the Muslim world) following the latest developments since the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023.

Openly supporting Hamas, the text argued that Israel is now facing “an existential earthquake that has shaken the foundations of the Zionist project from its base. Hamas has not only won on the battlefield, but has also exploded the myth of the ‘invincible state’ and exposed our fragility to the world.”

It went on to fantasise that Israelis are secretly fleeing the country: “Flights to Europe, America and Canada are fully booked. Embassies are full of immigration applications. Families are silently selling their belongings. Parents send their children to study abroad, with no intention of returning… Yes, they flee like rats from a collapsing ship.”

Farah News columnist Zuheir al Sibawi

The Greater Israel conspiracy

Farah News also continued spreading antisemitic tropes. Columnist Zuheir al Sibawi offered a conspiratorial interpretation of the clashes in Syria during July between Druze and Sunni factions and government forces in his article, “The Israeli aggression on Syria and the betrayal of the Druze” (published July 19).

Israel intervened in the crisis on the side of the Druze community. For Sibawi, that was “proof” that the Jewish state, aided by the US, is pursuing the clandestine plan he labelled “David’s Corridor” – an ‘evil’ scheme to set up a new trade route from Iraq to Israel using alliances with the Kurds and Druze. Moreover, he said this was a step towards taking over the whole region, the so-called “Greater Israel” project. According to Sibawi, mooted contacts between Israeli officials and representatives of Syria’s new ruler, Ahmad al Shar’a, were meant to “prevent its [Israel’s] withdrawal from the Syrian territories it occupied since the fall of the former regime on the eighth of December 2024, and to keep several military sites it has established inside the Syrian depth, and it wants to implicate the Druze in this battle to facilitate its plan… it has succeeded temporarily, while the farthest and most dangerous goal is the David Corridor project, which Israel seeks to achieve by dividing Syria and linking the occupied territories in southern Syria with the Kurdish areas in northern Syria, which are rich in oil and gas, while providing them with a corridor on the Syrian coast, thus achieving the dream of Greater Israel.”

Sibawi went on to argue that Israel wants to ethnically divide Syria, and “will not allow there to be an economically prosperous democratic state on its borders, as democratic countries in our Arab world threaten their existence, so they always seek to impose tyrant rulers and dictators… to rule the Arab countries… if [Israel] cannot do so, it will seek to create sectarian strife and infighting.”

Sibawi is not alone in promoting old lies about Jewish aspirations to dominate the region. Antoine al Kazzi, the editor of Australia’s best-known Arabic-language newspapers, El Telegraph, also deduced from the events in Syria in July that the Jewish state is pulling the strings behind the scenes to promote a “Greater Israel”.

Al Kazzi based his “analysis” on a series of stories aired on Israel’s Kan 11 TV channel about the roughly 15,000 Israelis now living in Cyprus (mostly in Larnaca and Limassol), some of whom commute to work there from Israel (a short 45 min flight each way).

Al Kazzi’s interpretation of this trend was very conspiratorial – he warned that Israel is taking over the little island of Cyprus as a step in the grand plan to take over the Middle East, as presented in the platform of the antisemitic and fascist pro-Assad Syrian/Lebanese party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, (which has also been active in Australia, as AIJAC has previously documented).

Screenshot from El-Telegraph’s “The star of the fertile crescent ‘Bye-bye’?!” (July 28)

The graphic chosen for his editorial, “The star of the fertile crescent ‘Bye-bye’?!”, on July 28 was a map of the areas Israel is allegedly plotting to take over – from the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula to the south, through Jordan and Syria, all the way to Iraq in the east, as well as Cyprus in the west.

“Cyprus is the star of their [Israel’s] fertile crescent,” posited al Kazzi, and the island is now “witnessing an Israeli ‘brutality’ that makes Cyprus an Israeli ‘settlement’ par excellence.”

His proof? Al Kazzi quoted an Israeli in Cyprus featured in one of the stories who expressed the dream of peace with Syria by joking that “We can’t eat hummus in Damascus, at least we eat it in a Syrian restaurant here.”

Al Kazzi warned that “this is no ordinary joke, but it has a lot of symbolism that goes beyond the space of a small restaurant.” To bring his argument home, he quoted from Hassan Nasrallah, the slain leader of Hezbollah, Iran’s terror proxy in Lebanon (who was eliminated by Israel on Sept. 27, 2024). Al Kazzi reminded readers that in June 2024, Nasrallah warned Cyprus, an ally of Israel, not to allow the IDF to use the Mediterranean island in possible attacks against Lebanon. Now, said al Kazzi, “It seems that the star of the Fertile Crescent is turning into an Israeli settlement,” as if 15,000 Israelis living legally in a country of 1.3 million represents any serious threat to its independence. Meanwhile, apparently, their greatest “brutality” is enjoying hummus.

There seems little doubt that these sorts of conspiracy theories, lies and antisemitic tropes about Israel and Jews being published in the Australian media in Arabic and for Muslim Australians are dangerously feeding into the unprecedented wave of antisemitism over the past 22 months.